Some truths and misinformation about pitching

I keep hearing the same old story about pitching...

Keep the ball down...now that is the silliest thing in the world...but, true to some extent! If one has a sinkerball, curve, change-up yes, by all means...keep it low! 

Every pitcher is different, every pitcher has different pitches, so one can't pitch to the  Cookie Cutter style!

If one has a good fastball, change and let's say slider, yes and no. change and curve...down! Fastball inside just above the hands or up near the letters and above. If any of you watch, even the pros will swing at the high hard one...the reason being, it looks as big as a softball and as easy to hit but, unless your name is Yogi...don't go for it...87% of the time you will miss it completely or pop it up.

Do I have stats to back it up? Nope, none at all, just watching and learning from those that had what I never had...a good fastball.

More proof is four guys we have on the Yankees, Bird, Brett, McCann and Ells all three of them will go for it on any 2 strikes count (almost)...and miss it. That and a killer slider down and away will make a hitter humble! Unless you are Mo, then add the Cutter in at the hands.

I am waiting for EVO to learn to go up with his Fastball once in a while instead of down, it is easier to drop the bat on a low pitch then swing up on a fastball (around 93/100 mph) around the eye level.

One of the greatest assets for a pitcher is C&C (Command & Control) with it a pitcher with a 90 mph fastball and two off-speed pitches can become the #1/2 on some staffs with a long winning career to look back at when they hang up the spikes.

Yankee Fans are Spoiled!

I am well over 70 and have seen many of the greatest Yankees from back in the 1940's up to this day. And have had trouble understanding some of the fans of this day and age...You are spoiled! May goodness we haven't been to the playoffs in three years...fire the manager and GM!

I have seen or heard (radio) 18 of the 27 WS wins and also the great depression of 1960s and 1980s those years we won very little at all.

The times have changed, the team can no longer buy the WS win as they have done in the past.

One must build a dynasty like they had in the 1940s 1950s, one does that by making good trades and bringing up the kids...you know, guys like Joe "D", Whitey Ford, Yogi, Elli Howard, Stottlemyre, Rizzuto, Guidry, Munson, Mattingly and one of the greatest of them all Mickey Mantle. Well, let's say Mantle and A-Rod are two of the greatest Yankees of the last 65 years.

So, let me say this; Give Cashman and (I hate to say this) Hal time to try it the new way...the way Cashman has been trying to do for years. Build the farm system and use the players as homegrown players and trade the players for missing pieces we need.

These next three years are the turning point for this team and the whole system itself.

We have players with potential ready and willing to come to the Bigs. There are a plethora of pitchers  and International signings are going to start lighting it up this year.

Ortiz not for prime time HoF!

I am A Yankee Fan first and foremost, as with Daniel, talent is talent, but my vote against him is he was given special treatment as a hitter and only a one-way player. I know he was a good glove at 1st base, but he would make it as having been a DH over the majority of his career in Boston.

This would be another one-way player to get into the HoF because he was a nice guy and the face of the team. His name was on the Mitchell Report and has had (it has been said) known use of PED's along with his buddy Manny but wasn't given tests like the other players.

His style of hitting was to make the plate only 10" wide, the outside 10"! He stood on the batters box line and leaned over the plate giving the pitcher less than half the plate to throw the ball for a strike. A pitcher would miss the to the inner half of the plate, it was long gone. If it was a strike on the outer half of the plate it was a double or single (HR, sometimes) because he could still reach it and put good wood on it. At first, some of the pitchers would throw inside to him and (sometimes) hit him, getting tossed out of the game just for throwing a strike. With all that body armor, he could care less if you came inside on him because if you didn't hit him he would step back and put a charge into it. I think everyone knows, if you are in the Show, one can hit a fastball...right, well how is it possible for a right-handed pitcher to throw anything but a fastball to him? If one throws a curve he will let it hit him or if not inside enough to hit him...it is in his wheelhouse and gone. Splitters and chang-ups would get him out...good ones!
So, even though Ortiz is a great baseball talent and on that alone should be a shoe-in for the Hall. Forget about all the innuendos of PED use.

I say Nay for the HoF...Only because he had the advantage of playing 1/3 of the games each year as the team's DH and didn't wear down as most other players did.